


Upon A Star

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Series: Proof of Life [2]
Category: Servamp (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, The Sister Lives! (kind of), feat. Bath Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 11:52:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13387242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: Closing her own eyes – she makes a desperate wish on those stars, that what happened that night will never happen again, that she and her brother will be together forever.The first night comes to an end, with fears for the future and closure for the past.|Tumblr||Twitter|





	Upon A Star

Sakuya wakes up to the sensations of movement and warmth.

He can't open his eyes, even when he tries - "awake" might be a bit of an overstatement. Everything is hazy, blurred over in his mind like condensation on the bathroom mirror after a shower hot enough to scald his skin pink for hours.

He doesn't feel worried, though, because he recognises the warmth surrounding him, the arms that cradle him. The faint scent of cheap soap drifts around him, and he nuzzles deeper into his sister's hold. Briefly, her fingers flex, as if in surprise - he feels them loosen and then dig into his sides as she starts a little at his movement. The rocking that had told him they were moving stalls for a second, and then her grip is steady once more, and she's walking again.

Walking _where_ , is the question. What are they even doing out? And why is she carrying him like this, in an absolute silence disturbed only by her breathing, her footsteps?

Sakuya's head _hurts_ something fierce, and the world is still a smeared kaleidoscope in his head for as much sense as anything makes right now - but he tries to think on what is actually the last thing he remembers.

School? No - they were home, and must have been for a while, because he'd changed into his pajamas. His mother had been complaining there was no milk in the fridge for her coffee the next morning, and had told sis to go get her some -

He goes cold. He doesn't remember what happened next in great detail - but he remembers his father's grip on his neck, tight and unrelenting; remembers his sister's tears - remembers the knife to her neck and the ultimatum offered:

_Jump, or I'll slit her throat._

So he'd jumped, of course. Slid both legs over the railing, closed his eyes, and let gravity take him. He'd known he was going to die, but if it meant sis lived, then he was fine with that.

_So why was he still alive?_

His heart was racing now, adrenalin pumping through his body at the speed of his panic, and above him he vaguely heard sis make a sound - her hold on him shifted, and then there were fingers running through his hair, tugging playfully on that one stray curl they could never manage to get under control. The action was meant to sooth him, clearly, and it did a little; he leans into his sister's touch and fists his hands into her shirt, holding on tight, so she can't leave him.

She murmurs something low - he can't hear her, her words muffled, but her voice around him slows his too fast heartbeat. He finds himself drifting back into unconsciousness -

...but he swears he can hear another voice, far deeper, respond to his sister's words.

-x-

The place Tsubaki leads them to is nearly on the complete opposite side of town to where the cheap apartment Haru had grown up in was.

She blinks up at the well-lit, high rise hotel with no small amount of consternation – both she and Sakuya are covered in blood, and definitely not dressed to enter a place so high class – but Tsubaki doesn’t even pause in his steps as she falters, so she swallows down her nerves as best she can and hurries to catch up with him before he walks through the revolving glass doors.

He sends her a smile as he nudges her inside. “Don’t worry,” he says. “They won’t even notice you.”

She looks at him askance, but doesn’t protest his words, even as she doubts him. He is, she supposes, a vampire, which means he can probably like, make them invisible or something. After all, she’s carried her brother more than halfway across town without breaking a sweat – without even really noticing his weight in her arms.

The receptionists lined up along the desk smile in greeting as Tsubaki sweeps in, an arm resting over Haru’s shoulders to guide her along. He smiles back, and they clearly don’t see anything wrong, even as they track a trail of congealing blood on the glossy tiles behind them. Haru isn’t sure if she’s impressed, or scared. Maybe a little of both.

There’s a part of Haru that wants to take the stairs up to whatever room is Tsubaki’s – since she’s presuming he’s leading her there, and not to her own room; after all, it’s not like he’d expected to bring anyone back with him from his evening walk – because even if taking the stairs up would take longer, or risk more people seeing them…it’s not like she was physically tired (far from it), and Tsubaki had managed to keep the people in the entrance hall from noticing them, so she had no doubt that he could continue to do the same thing as they headed further into the hotel…

Honestly, just the idea of getting into a cramped steel box, for however short a time, wasn’t a fun one. It sets her nerves alight, and cold sweat breaks out on her skin. She breathes deep and shaky, air whistling through clenched teeth. Tsubaki definitely heard the sound – but he doesn’t comment on it, which she’s thankful for. Her hands flutter around her brother where they grip him to her tight, and she tries to swallow down her anxiety as she steps into the rectangular box of doom.

Tsubaki pats her gently on the shoulder, and the dragging sleeve of his kimono sends shivers down her spine where it brushes against her skin. “Shall we wake him up, then?” He asks, and nods down at Sakuya. “Getting him on his own feet might be a good idea, before we take him in to meet the others.”

There are a million things in that sentence Haru could choose to latch onto; _others_ , Tsubaki had said, but not specified the exact amount of people. The _we_ that had implied a trust and connection that Haru didn’t logically think someone could share with her when they’d barely known each other for an hour…but that she _did_ feel with him.

A million things, and her brain fixates on the suggestion of waking her little brother up, still covered in blood, and in an unfamiliar location. It wasn’t a natural sleep he was in, after all – Tsubaki had been keeping him under since before they left the ruined apartment they had grown up in. Apparently, it had been quite difficult, too – Sakuya had kept forcing himself awake as they walked.

 _Magic is willpower_ , Tsubaki had simply laughed when Haru had questioned it. _And your brother has a lot of that in reserve._

And well, Haru couldn’t deny that. It was one of Sakuya’s best traits; his determination. When it wasn’t annoying, that was – his stubborn bullheadedness and righteous anger had gotten the both of them into major trouble more than once.

With Tsubaki, though, that smile when he’d mentioned how Sakuya’s will was strong – it felt genuine. It hadn’t felt like _he_ felt it was something annoying, like their parents always had, something to be broken and beaten down – and that was the only reason she’d agreed to trust him enough to let his magic anywhere near her brother in the first place. It had, at the very least, made it easier to get across town with Sakuya still unconscious.

So, she can’t really find any malice in his words right now, or any reason to distrust that all he really wants is just to wake Sakuya up – especially not when she already agreed to let him put him to sleep in the first place. She nods as Tsubaki presses down on one of the elevator buttons; not quite the top floor, but closer to it than the ground. She grimaces a bit at the thought of the balcony the room that he’s staying in is sure to have – she’s pretty sure she’s had enough of overlooking views for the rest of the night, if not the rest of her _life_.

Haru pushes the thought away as Sakuya stirs in her arms, more energetic than he has been any of the other times he struggled his way through layers of false sleep – clearly, Tsubaki is no longer putting forth any effort to keep him down at all. Her stomach bottoms out as the elevator shakes a little and glides silently to life – it only takes a few seconds for it to move between the floors to their destination; this late at night, no one else appears to be calling the elevator to their floor.

They exit swiftly once the doors open, and once in the hall Haru can breathe a little easier – she may still be covered in blood, both her own and her parents, that’s now dried enough to be itchy and flaking on her skin (honestly the only reason the scent of it isn’t making her…well, _hungry_ , anymore), with the sort of detached knowledge in the back of her mind that the man humming softly next to her is the man who killed her parents, just as they tried their very hardest to kill both her and Sakuya - but at least she's no longer in the steel death trap.

...Are elevators even made of steel?

The thought is a hazy, random one, completely unimportant, and Haru wonders if the hysteria of the night, that has been building up over the course of several hours, is finally overflowing. She swallows, her throat dry, and against her, Sakuya moves once more - but this time the movement was _deliberate_ , with purpose. She looks down, blinking, and locks gazes with a very alert Sakuya.

He looks entirely aware of his surroundings, even if he's unsure of his _situation_. She smiles at him, in an attempt to reassure him, but the tension in his face and body doesn't drain away.

 _Oh_ , Haru realises, as she watches her brother's eyes flicker all over her face. She's covered in blood.

"I'm fine," she says quietly. "It's not mine." The lie comes out easily, even as she's wincing internally. She is, if nothing else, her parent's daughter - a Watanuki, and she comes by the family talent 'honestly' enough. Besides, it's technically true, in an incredibly roundabout way. It isn't like there are any wounds on her now to prove the blood is hers, and given how soaked she'd been in both her mother's and father's blood by the time they had left the apartment for the streets, she had no idea how much of it was still hers in the first place.

A better sister would probably worry at the way Sakuya immediately relaxed at the confirmation that the blood wasn't hers - meaning it was someone else's - but Haru could fully understand his feelings on this matter. If Sakuya had come home one day looking like he'd just bathed in a slaughterhouse, then she isn't sure she'd really be able to care too much, so long as the blood wasn't _his_.

Sakuya's remaining mostly still in her arms, apparently still trying to feign sleep so as to not alert Tsubaki that he's awake. He keeps shooting suspicious glares at the man's back as he leads them down the hall, and Haru doesn't bother to tell her brother that he definitely already _knows_ that he is awake, since he is the entire reason he was asleep in the first place.

“We’re here,” Tsubaki finally says, a smile in his tone and curling up his lips as he pauses before a door and pulls out a keycard from somewhere, and Haru feels Sakuya give the most miniscule flinch ever in her arms as he startles from the voice. She just hold him tighter, letting him relax in his own time.

Focusing on keeping her brother calm is the only thing that keeps her together as she steps into the hotel room, just before Tsubaki – who was holding the door open for her, still smiling. She couldn’t hear anything from within the room while the door was closed, but she can now – faint murmurings of people talking quietly, and absolutely no heartbeats except for the two close to her; her brother in her arms, and Tsubaki by her side, sidling up to lead her further into the obscenely large suite once he’s shut the door closed behind them.

The place he leads her to is one she can only call a lounge, and she freezes like a deer in headlights as three pairs of eyes lock onto her.

The sole woman of the group barely spares her and Sakuya a glance before returning her attention to the string she has entwined around her hands – cat’s cradle, Haru thinks, but more complex than she’s ever seen it before. She’s immediately Haru’s favourite – her swift dismissal of them as anything interesting is more reassuring than she’d like to admit, especially as she’s sweating under the intense scrutiny of the remaining two men.

One, with his hair pulled back in a style similar to how she wears hers but in shades of _bright pink_ that she’d almost think couldn’t be natural if it weren’t for the fact that her own hair had proven otherwise years ago, looks mostly curious, gaze flickering from her to Tsubaki to Sakuya as if he isn’t sure which to question first – but the other, wearing a crisp suit that screams professionalism only slightly offset by the gaudy eyepatch that covers half his face, is glaring at her, a scowl affixed to his face that reminds her far too much of her parents, and has her immediately shrinking back, wanting to shove Sakuya behind her.

Tsubaki’s hand coming to rest on her shoulder stalls her movement, and loosens the tension tightening up the air. The guy in the suit still doesn’t look too happy to see her – or maybe more specifically, her brother, since Sakuya’s apparently sleeping body is the one he’s now frowning at – but the posture in his frame that had made her wary that he was going to come at her is gone, as he simply leans back up against the wall without a word.

“This is Haru,” Tsubaki says, smiling, and Haru blinks through the greetings he moves through at a lightning pace – Otogiri, who doesn’t look back up from her string; Belkia, who shoots her a grin and a peace sign, and Shamrock, who barely nods at her.

They’ve all got red eyes, she’s noticed. The same red eyes that she does now, and none of them are so much as blinking at the gore that coats her.

If she’d met these people at any point earlier in her life, she’d be afraid. But right now, she’s got her brother in her arms, alive, with the knowledge that their parents can never hurt him nor her again. She’s got enough relief in her to fuel what might just be a false sense of security, and that lends her the bravado she needs to hold her chin up high and meet the eyes of everyone in the room head-on, just before she ducks into a shallow bow – taking care not to squish or jostle Sakuya too much – and asks for them to please take care of her.

They’re empty, hollow words – she can take care of herself, since no one else ever has – but Tsubaki looks happy and that makes her happy, so she tries not to taste the lingering bitterness speaking them leaves in her mouth too much.

A hand, curling into her shirt, and Haru knows her brother has had enough of playing the sleeping beauty. So, gently, slowly, she lowers him to the ground, and he rubs at his eyes and yawns, playing the part of someone who had only just woken up near perfectly, turning the cute factor up to one hundred just to see if it could get him any manipulation leeway.

She isn’t sure if anyone in the room is fooled by their little act, or is just humoring them, but when Sakuya startles in an affected surprise and ducks behind her legs, looking wide eyed out at the room, Tsubaki takes a step back from her and smiles down at her brother from a fair distance away.

Sakuya watches him warily, and Haru doesn’t want her brother feeling upset, so she taps him on the head lightly to draw his attention upwards. He looks towards her, like he always does – and pales, something scarily like fright crossing his face as he flinches away from her.

Haru tries not to feel the hurt that comes through the confusion – no doubt, she looks like a mess, something out of a horror movie, and Sakuya had always been squeamish.

“Sakuya,” she begins, but Tsubaki cuts her off.

“Before anything else,” he says. “I think it would be best for the two of you to take a bath.”

There’s a part of Haru that shudders at the idea – baths aren’t fun, they’re dangerous, and there was a reason she and Sakuya had only ever had lightning fast showers while the other kept watch growing up – but a larger part that acknowledges the logic, and she acquiesces, not wanting to push Tsubaki’s goodwill further than it’s already stretched, lest she draw his ire.

Sakuya is pale and quiet, still, when she takes up his hand in her own in order to lead him to the bathroom Tsubaki directs them too – he doesn’t talk to her at all, and worry begins buzzing in Haru’s chest.

It isn’t until they’re actually in the bathroom, nominally alone and with the door shut and _locked_ behind them (though Haru is still sure that the four others in the suite can still everything going on in the room perfectly) that he speaks.

“Your eyes,” he says, and one of Haru’s hands flies up to press against the skin around them instinctively. “They’re red.”

Haru blinks. _Shit_.

She hadn’t thought of that at all. She was going to explain everything to Sakuya, of course – but she hadn’t really thought of _how_ , just yet, and given the suspicion clouding thicker by the second in his eyes as her stunned silence continued, he wasn’t even sure that she _was_ who she said she was – and she remembered Tsubaki introducing her as Haru not even ten minutes earlier, and she wanted to kick something.

“It’s me, Sakuya,” she says, voice trembling slightly and with more pleading to the tone than she’d like to admit. “I promise, it’s me.”

-x-

She sounds like sis when she speaks, and there’s a sheen to her eyes that suggests tears, which has Sakuya panicking – he doesn’t want her to start _crying_ – but she’s too pale, with red eyes, and he isn’t an idiot. She’d felt cold, before, when she’d been holding him against her, but it wasn’t until he’d seen those unnatural eyes near glowing above him that it had clicked, and he’d realised that _she didn’t have a heartbeat_.

Sakuya knew the rhythm of his sister’s heart, probably better than he knew his own. He’d memorized the staccato tempo from years of hugs and crawling into her bed at night – because he was cold, because he was scared, because sis would always protect him from anything.

And sis had always taught him not to trust anyone. So until he knew one way or another that this was his sister _for sure_ , he wasn’t going to let his guard down.

“That man called you Haru,” he says, and she nods.

“That’s my name now,” she says. “You know I hated my old one, Sakuya.”

He glares at her, and feels a little bad when she shrinks away. “Then tell me _what_ your old name is.” It’s a demand, and he hates making it, and if this girl really does turn out to be sis he’ll apologize a hundred times over for making her say it, but for now he needs to know. He needs to be _sure_.

She bites at her lip, but she chokes the name out. Slowly, Sakuya nods, but he doesn’t let down his guard yet, because anyone who had looked at a legal document could have learned what that name was, even if that doesn’t guarantee they’d know of sis’ aversion to it.

He’s thinking, trying to figure out a way to ask a question that only sis and no one else could know the answer to, when Haru speaks up.

“You know why I chose Haru as my new name?” She asks, and continues on before Sakuya can shake his head, “because it means ‘spring,’ Sakuya, and that’s when you were born.”

 _You’re the most important thing to me_ , those pleading eyes say, once he looks past the red. _I love you more than anything else in the world._

He swallows, throat suddenly tight, and lets out a sob, because he _knows_ now – this is his sister.

He runs forward, into her legs, and wraps his arms around her waist. He barely comes up to her elbows, but she still immediately hugs him back, ignoring the awkward angle.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he can feel her move against him – he guesses she’s shaking her head.

“Don’t be,” she tells him, voice quiet; a near whisper. “I’m glad you’re being cautious.”

Sakuya nods slowly as he pulls away. “I’m still sorry,” he insists, lowering his volume to match hers, and she smiles.

“Come on,” she says, and straightens back up. “We’ll get cleaned up, and I’ll…I’ll explain everything that’s happened.”

‘Bath time’ is a bit of an experience – the bath itself is huge, and traditional Japanese style, whereas the tiny one they’d had in the cramped bathroom back in the apartment they’d called home was a western one that had rarely – if ever – been used. Showers were quicker, and safer, so Sakuya immediately beelined for one of the showerheads affixed to the wall that ran along one edge of the room, a little way removed from the bath.

He’d been trying not to think about the blood that coated him from head to toe, tacky and itchy and smelling of copper, but it was kind of hard to keep doing so as he peeled off layers of clothing that had congealed and dried stuck to skin, soaked through with red fading to brown.

He swallows, freezing, and sis is there in a heartbeat to pull his clothes from his hands and push him under the soft, warm spray of the shower she’d just turned on. Her fingers running through his hair are soothing and nostalgic, making him think of all the times she had to help him out when they were kids, and hearing her hum a little tune makes it easy to close his eyes and just let her wash him – she seems to be reassuring herself that they’re both still alive and together after the events of the night, and this way Sakuya doesn’t have to see the red wash down the drain. It’s a win on both sides.

Eventually, they’re both as clean as can be, and Sakuya feels distinctly raw all over – almost like layers of skin had come off with the blood and the soap. If they’d been at home, he would be rushing to get dressed now, as fast as he could – but sis leads him to the gigantic and steaming bath, and since leaving the bathroom means dealing with those strangers again, he’s happy enough to slip into the water and just soak in it, enjoying the heat.

Sis smiles at him as he splashes around a bit for the first few minutes, before calling his attention to her. And then, while he’s blinking at her curiously, she explains everything.

At first, he doesn’t believe her – vampires aren’t real, he isn’t _stupid_ – but then she opens her mouth and flashes fang at him, and he can’t _not_ believe her.

And if she’s telling the truth about that…

“Mum and Dad,” he asks, voice small. “They’re really dead?”

Sis hesitates, and then nods.

And Sakuya _grins_.

-x-

If getting Sakuya into the bath was a lesson in patience, getting him _out_ of it is a full blown university course on the matter. Her little brother, apparently, has no desire to pull himself out of the warm water in order to get dressed and hang around in a strange hotel room filled with people he doesn’t know.

Which – Haru can sympathise, absolutely, but he’s been yawning and nodding off against her for the past ten minutes, and she doesn’t want to test how long _she_ can stay awake to hold him up out of the water to let him fall asleep in the bath. She’s heard horror stories about how many kids die from drowning in unattended baths a year, and she isn’t going to let that be Sakuya.

So, ignoring his complaints and protests – broken down by the occasional yawn – she tugs him out of the water and wraps him up in one of the ridiculously fluffy hotel bathrobes that are piled up alongside towels in the cupboards under the sinks. She doesn’t have any of his actual clothes with her – they’d taken nothing from their apartment, though Tsubaki had promised that they could go back to grab what they needed once he’d ‘had it cleaned up,’ whatever that meant.

Tsubaki smiles at them as they exited the bathroom, both in bathrobes, with Sakuya clinging sleepily to Haru’s leg. He’s sitting at a bar space alongside Belkia, who waves at them cheerfully enough.

Haru forces a smile. No need to go antagonizing the people she’s apparently going to be staying with for the next however long.

“There’s a room for you up the hall,” Tsubaki says, and throws her a keycard. Her eyes trace it’s movement through the air and her hand snatches out to catch it before she’s even thought twice or registered her body moving.

She blinks at Tsubaki, and that grin of his widens. “You’re right next door, so come see me if you need anything,” he says, and Haru is quick to give a bow of thanks and farewell before tugging her brother out of the suite and into the one that is now apparently for them.

It’s way too large, is her first thought, but she doesn’t let herself dwell on it too much, moving instead towards one of the bedrooms positioned off of the main area.

The beds are large enough that a whole family could probably sleep in one, so Haru tucks both herself and Sakuya into the one closest to the window, wrapping her little brother up tight in the thick duvet that was on top of the bed.

He’s out in seconds, his breathing evening out into something deep and unconscious.

Haru looks out past him, through the window until her eyes rest on the night sky – on the stars, a few just barely visible through the lights and the smog of the city.

Closing her own eyes – she makes a desperate wish on those stars, that what happened that night will never happen again, that she and her brother will be together forever.

And then, even though she had been planning to stay awake – to keep watch – with her eyes closed, and Sakuya curled warm and safe against her chest, Haru sleeps.


End file.
